Off His Rocker

His sin? The Atlanta Braves' relief pitcher said what he really thinks about people who don't look or sound like he does.

He does not like such people, judging by his response when Sports Illustrated's Jeff Pearlman asked him how he would feel about playing for a New York City team.

What? The Big Apple? Rocker's idea of pure hell.

"I would retire first," he said. "It's the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the (No.) 7 train to (Shea Stadium) looking like you're (riding through) Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It's depressing."

Further: "The biggest thing I don't like about New York are the foreigners. I'm not a very big fan of foreigners. You can walk an entire block in Times Square and not hear anybody speaking English. Asians and Koreans and Vietnamese and Indians and Russians and Spanish people and everything up there. How the hell did they get in this country?"

Among other slurs, he also called an overweight teammate of African descent a "fat monkey," according to the magazine. Rocker even delivered the normally obligatory disclaimer about his own prejudices half-heartedly: "I'm not a racist or prejudiced person, but certain people bother me."

Evidently. If Rocker doesn't like New York City I don't think New Yorkers are going to weep. They have too many other people who are quite eager to live there by any means necessary, even though it is a best-known as a place where well-educated professionals pay outlandish amounts of money to live in incredibly teeny apartments.

Deep beneath my own annoyance at Rocker's oafishness, I feel sorry for the guy. I always feel sorry for bigots and other narrow-minded people. They miss out on so much in life.

Rocker's mind apparently is too narrow to enable him to appreciate what is, acre-for-acre, the most culturally rich piece of real estate on the planet.

It is culturally rich for the same reasons that it is diverse in ethnicity and lifestyles. People are lured from all over the planet to New York City because of its welcoming culture of tolerance for those who will work hard, make a contribution and get along with their neighbors, even if sometimes quite loudly.

With diversity, there is tension, regardless of what country you live in. We Americans have been able to handle our diversity better than a lot of countries in recent years because racial desegregation has given us more opportunities to know each other as individuals, not just as groups.

In fact, the irony of the Macon, Ga., native's remarks is that they express the sort of ignorant attitudes that feed northern bigotry against Southerners and big-city bigotry against "rubes" and "hicks."

Even Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan, who seldom has hesitated to play the race or religion card when it helped raise his profile, says he is having a change of heart.

The same day Rocker was issuing his apology, Farrakhan was giving reporters in Chicago a very sincere-sounding sermon in unity and forgiveness among all races and religions. Standing with clergy from the Catholic, Jewish and Muslim faiths, the 66-year-old leader of the Million Man March said that his "near-death experience" with prostate cancer had left him a changed man.

It was a heartwarming sight, even if he didn't issue much of an apology for offenses taken by Jews and others to his past intemperate remarks.

If Farrakhan appears to be seeing this nation's ethnic and religious diversity in a more favorable light, he is following a pattern set by Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, the two most famous Nation of Islam leaders who preceded him.

People can change. For that reason, I still hold out hope for John Rocker. He may be facing enough punishment from his own teammates and employers. It is hard to imagine things ever will be the same for him in the locker rooms of a game with so many blacks, Hispanics and "foreigners" in it as today's pro baseball teams have.

Instead of punishing Rocker for saying what he believes, perhaps he should receive some wise counsel. Perhaps Minister Farrakhan could help.